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Monday, 29 October 2012

Soufflé cheesecake is the Japanese take on cheesecake. It's much lighter than the American or German version and not at all cheesy – the ideal cheesecake for cheesecake haters. The recipe I'm sharing is adapted from Diana's Desserts. I've made four changes to the original recipe: ⋈ The amount of cream cheese is reduced by about 30% to make the cake really light.

⋈ The oven is preheated to 180°C, then reduced to 170°C when the baking starts. The original recipe uses 160°C instead.

Despite the higher temperature and lesser cream cheese, my baking time is about the same as Diana's.

⋈ The cake is bakedin the bottom instead of the middle of the oven so that the top doesn't brown too quickly.

⋈ The egg whites are whisked without cream of tartar. I find the cake too sour with the original recipe's ¼ tsp, and the acid isn't necessary for stopping the cake from collapsing.

Besides the above changes, I've added a couple of steps to make the cake as smooth as possible: sieving the cream cheese mixture; and removing big air bubbles in the batter by banging the mixing bowl hard, and by pouring slowly when the batter is transferred into the cake pan.

The inside of a good soufflé cheesecake should have lots of tiny holes, like a chiffon cake, to make it light. Big holes would be unsightly; no holes at all would mean the cake is heavy and dense like a regular cheesecake

Here's my video to help you make a very light, very non-cheesy cheesecake:

Add egg whites to yolk mixture in 3 batches. Mix till half even after each of first 2 additions, then till just fully even after third addition. Bang mixing bowl against worktop 3-4 times, hard, to remove big air bubbles.

Pour batter into cake pan, slowly so that big air bubbles burst as batter flows out of mixing bowl.

Reboil water in kettle. Put cake pan in a bigger pan. Fill outer pan with boiling water to about half-way up sides of inner cake pan. Reduce oven temperature to 170°C (340°F). Bake in bottom of oven till top of cake is golden brown and inserted skewer comes out with some crumbs attached, about 1¼ hours.

Remove cake from oven. Leave on wire rack to cool down completely. Unmould by inverting onto a plate. Discard parchment paper. Invert onto another plate so that cake is right way up. Cut with serrated knife by moving blade either forward or backward, i.e. do not saw.

My Japanese cheesecake is moist but dry enough to have crumbs stick to an inserted skewer when it's removed from the oven (ref. video 3:16). After it's cooled down, an inserted skewer would come out clean. A chiffon cake is drier. I bake mine till an inserted comes out clean, then give it another few more minutes.

omg can anything look lighter and fluffier? I always come to your site when I want THE recipe because you do all the recipe testing and comparing and editing for us (: I can now delete the rest of my jap cheesecake bookmarks.

This is my kind of ideal cheesecake. The soft and fluffy texture looks wonderful.Nice to know you thru blogging. Love your "tigress action" in your kitchen and look forward to see more of "action-pact" cooking and baking :D I'm now your latest follower.

I think so, in the past, I try chiffon cake but becos of egg white under whisked so it didn't turn out well. Correct me if i am wrong, must whisk the egg white for 1) abt 4mins 2) no water 3) no egg yolk 4) can't leave the whisked egg white so too long. I am trying strawberry cheese cake today, hope it turn out well. Btw, my kids love the cheesecake. O, I still can't figure out why there is a layer of jelly at the bottom. Maybe u can enlighten me :)

Hi, I bakes one on Sunday (diff recipe) but left the cake in the oven to cool for an hr ++ (turning power off) to prevent it from sinking. But you took the cake from oven & cool on wire rack straight away. Will your cake sink?

Hi Karen, my cake doesn't need to cool down in the oven. The structure of the cake is quite strong because of the gum in the cream cheese. Just make sure the cake is baked at a lowish temperature, and is cooked and set (skewer test) before removing it from the oven.

you were saying bake using the lowest tray, in this case we turn on the baking mode to top heat only? im afraid that if i turn on both top and bottom, the bottom will be burnt because the tray sits very close to the bottom heat. pls advice. thanks.

Thanks for the recipe. I often buy these soft cheesecakes at a Japanese bakery and I love them but sadly my husband does not like cheese. I was wondering if I could use your above recipe and not use the cheese?

I have been trying to find recipe for those sponge cakes with cream filling that you find in Asian bakeries. Your cheese cake looks like its from a professional bakery so I thought maybe you could be able to help out with the bakery style soft sponge cake.

I think you shouldn't have used the whisk to incorporate the meringue with the yolk mixture, simple use the folding technique. It's abit more work but I think it's the best way to achieve a lighter cake cuz if you beat the egg whites in, you lose some air.....

Sorry, totally disagree. You use a whisk at god knows how many RPM to make the egg whites stiff, so how would using the same whisk at a (very) slow RPM do any harm to the stiffened egg whites? If the amount of egg whites being folded isn't much, I think both a spatula and whisk work well. However, if the amount of egg whites is a lot, a whisk works better. That's because it's faster since each prong on the whisk is equivalent to one spatula. When it's faster, the egg whites disintegrate less and don't turn grainy as much, thus making the cake lighter. I use a spatula to fold stiff egg whites only when the batter is too thick and sticky for a whisk.

Hey KT! I just made this recipe for my mom's birthday, my sister's boyfriend's birthday, and Mother's Day. There is a second batch in the oven as we speak. Originally, I was only suppose to make one, buuuuuuut, it was completely devoured in about 2 hours - even the oven was still warm. This cake is absolutely wonderful! So light and fluffy with the yummy taste of cheesecake. Followed the recipe exactly and it came out PERFECTLY! Thanks KT.

I just tried again. This time, it's not shrinking but didn't rise well. I think the egg white was too stiff .. Haizz why it's so hard for me .. I'll try again next week. Thanks KT for your reply .. have a nice weekend :)

halo KT, yesterday i try to bake cheese cake with your recipe and direct take out from the oven b'coz you say it won shrink if didn't cool down in the oven but you see the cake, shrink a lot and the taste not so good to much egg and less cheese taste.

hi Kt i just wanna share my cake photo. just made this a couple of hours ago. my family love it. i just added cream cheese frosting and some cheese on top. i must say it was a success. thanks for sharing this recipe.

I'm new to baking and my friend keep asking me to try out this receipe as its simple. Thus, I went to supermarket to buy cream cheese but as I'm new and not familier with all stuff yet, I got the lesser fat cream cheese, spreadable. Its not cream cheese spread unlike other box selling under same brand (if its cream cheese spread, there's print words on the side of the box, but mine doesn't). Thus, i'm wondering can i use it for this cheesecake? I have thought to try it not only for cheesecake but for swiss roll spread, and think, its still cream cheese without knowing there's different. Thus, I'm wondering if you could advise me if its workable. If its not, are you aware of what other receipe I can do to made use of the cream cheese, spreadable type?Thanks and sorry for this 'stupid' query.Fm, Li

Hi KT,sorry if i had torture your eye.. Just because I really really dont know and understand these stuff, on learning stage and seeing you so helpfully and expert in baking and give suggestions/tips, thus I had asked becos I really cant find much info while goggle for it as there's so many different suggestion. If you felt my query torture your eye. just delete it. Your comment really hurt. You might as well dont answer. But anyway, thanks for your hurt reply. have a good wkend.

Hi KT, I have just baked the cheesecake and it turn out great; very well received by my family. Thanks to your awesome recipe and super wonderful video. I also want to share the pic of my cheesecake below :

Hi KT, I have just baked the cheesecake and it turn out great; very well received by my family. Thanks to your awesome recipe and super wonderful video. I also want to share the pic of my cheesecake below :

Hi KT, thanks for your recipe, I halved the ingredients but followed all your steps closely and my cake turned out like this .... it was tall and proud in the oven but sank terribly and was wet :[ May I know what have I possibly done wrong? Thanks again!

If you do, you will not achieve the fine crumb texture that cake flour gives, and the raising agent may make the cake crack. The egg whites, properly whisked and handled, as described by KT in her recipe, is enough for the cake to rise evenly without cracking. But if you want a rougher-textured cake and cracked cake, that's entirely up to you.

Hi, i use cheddar cheese instead of cream cheese, and vanilla essence instead of lemon juice. All about the same amount. Turn out so good, also. I just used the available ingredients in my kitchen. Hahaha

Hi, my cake turned out great, except for a bottom layer of what feels like hardened cheese. About 1 cm thick from bottom of pan. The rest of the cake is awesome and soft. not sure where I went wrong, as I followed the recipe very closely. Have any of you experienced this hardened layer?

Hi ! I followed your recipe and the cake came out so perfect ! It was fluffy, golden brown, and delicious ! My family loved it ! I wanted to take a picture, but my family ate it before I could ! Thank you !

I have just been reading some feedback left by visitors to this site and I have to say 'KitchenTigress' is very unforgiving - to the point of being rude and sarcastic. People ask questions because they genuinely want/need to know the answers from an experienced 'teacher'. Replies such as "If what you did was close to the recipe, then the moon is close to planet Earth." is not only unhelpful but impolite.That being said, your tutorial is highly informative and thorough - I just wish you would pay similiar care with regard to how you respond to your visitors.

Hi, I got the same result as your on my first attempt. Then I do a search and watch a video. The fault is I did not seal the spring form cake tin bottom with silver foil and the water bath leaked inside. I use loaf cake tin on my 2nd attempt and it came out well just the cake top cracked. I believe this is due to the oven temperature. I shall reduce the oven temperature to 150°C on my next attempt. Hopefully I will get a smooth top surface like others ^.^

hi, how many eggs are used? tried to do a cal w 6 large eggs. i get 180g whites like yr recipe, but yolks frm less than 5 eggs. is it correct ? do u measure them exactly w a scale to get the certain grams. ? thks in advance. tryna est hw many eggs exactly do i need. cheerios :)